About Steven L. TaylorSteven L. Taylor is Professor and Chair of Political Science at Troy University. His main areas of expertise include parties, elections, and the institutional design of democracies. He is the author of Voting Amid Violence: Electoral Democracy in Colombia and is currently working on a comparative study of the US to 29 other democracies. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Texas and his BA from the University of California, Irvine. He has been blogging at PoliBlog since 2003.
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@Moosebreath: I usually ignore the thumbs-up/thumbs-down thing, but I have a rule: certain things will always get a thumbs-up from me. References to or quotations of Tom Lehrer, Monty Python, Douglas Adams, and P. J. O’Rourke are on that list.

@anjin-san:
Other than being able to quote a few lines….it’s obvious Jenos is incapable of grasping the meaning of anyone on his/her list.
Even monkeys are capable of mimicry.
Understanding meaning…not so much.

@OzarkHillbilly: Indeed. If I had to give up Clint Eastwood movies or Ted Nugent songs….well I gave up Nugent. But that’s not the point. I still like watching Eastwood even though he’s clearly a political idiot.

Many people if they didn’t know better would find it unbelievable that a Board Certified opthamologist should need to steal or plagiarize. Being more cynical than many I see it as contemptuously discounting his audience’s intelligence.

I would add Margaret Cho and Ron White to that list. Plus, I think Clint Eastwood’s performances in those three Dirty Harry movies were some of the best comedy I’ve seen. Great stuff – succinct, perfectly delivered, dead on.

About half, and was in diapers for a good percentage of the rest. And my point stands — just because someone is musically talented, or a good actor, or whatever, does not mean their political thinking is worth listening to.

I remember seeing Margret Cho at an open mic night when she was a complete unknown. It was obvious she was going places. It was a lot like seeing Huey Lewis in the early days. He had star quality, there was no way he was not going to make it. (though his label left “Sports” sitting in the can for two years before releasing it)

@OzarkHillbilly: W&S did a marvelous retelling of the murder of Julius Caesar from the viewpoint of Flavius Maximus, Roman Private Eye.

And Flanders & Swann? They were witty, veddy veddy British, and responsible for why a lot of Brits in the 1950s pronounced “gnu” as “ge-noo”. I recommend them highly (link to Youtube of one of their better songs).